Which version of ffmpeg is the latest?

Question

Here you can find all current versions of ffmpeg. I need one for Windows x64. I found there are multiple versions:

• ffmpeg-master-latest-win64-gpl-shared.zip
• ffmpeg-master-latest-win64-gpl.zip
• ffmpeg-master-latest-win64-lgpl-shared.zip
• ffmpeg-master-latest-win64-lgpl.zip
• ffmpeg-n5.0-latest-win64-gpl-5.0.zip
• ffmpeg-n5.0-latest-win64-gpl-shared-5.0.zip
• ffmpeg-n5.0-latest-win64-lgpl-5.0.zip
• ffmpeg-n5.0-latest-win64-lgpl-shared-5.0.zip

Which is currently the latest version? Why are there so many versions? And why does the package size differ?

My use case is converting private video data.

Answer 1

If you read the README for the repository you linked to you will see an explanation for all the different version under the header Targets, variants and add-ins:

Available:

• gpl Includes all dependencies, even those that require full GPL instead of just LGPL.
• lgpl Lacking libraries that are GPL-only. Most prominently libx264 and libx265.
• gpl-shared Same as gpl, but comes with the libav* family of shared libs instead of pure static executables.
• lgpl-shared Same again, but with the lgpl set of dependencies.

All of those can be optionally combined with any combination of addins.

• 4.4 to build from the 4.4 release branch instead of master.

So, for example ffmpeg-n5.0-latest-win64-gpl-5.0.zip is built from the n5.0 branch and includes all dependencies, even those that require full GPL instead of just LGPL.

Unless you require a specific set of libraries / licenses I think it's easiest to just get the full ffmpeg releasebuild for the latest release version from gyan.dev.